For the second a part of our RoboHouse Interview Trilogy: The Working Lifetime of the Robotics Engineer we converse with Wendel Postma, chief engineer at Challenge MARCH VIII. How does he resolve the conundrum of integration: getting a bunch of single-minded engineers to in the end serve the wants of 1 single exoskeleton consumer? Rens van Poppel inquires.
Wendel oversees technical engineering high quality, and shares liable for on-time supply inside funds with the opposite challenge managers. He spends his days wandering across the Dream Corridor on TU Delft Campus, encouraging his staff to discover new avenues for growing the exoskeleton. What is feasible inside the time that we have now? Can conflicting design options work collectively?
Bringing unhealthy information is a part of the chief engineer’s job.
There is no such thing as a scarcity of hobbies and actions for Chief Engineer, Wendel. Sitting nonetheless is one thing he can’t do, which is why exterior of Challenge MARCH, he’s doing lots of sports activities. This yr, Wendel is ensuring the staff has 1 exoskeleton on the finish of the yr as an alternative of many various components. He additionally communicates nicely inside the staff so all of the technological advances are understood and with a category of yoga so everybody can chill out once more. Wendel has many various objectives. For instance, he later needs to work within the well being trade and full an Ironman. Supply: Challenge MARCH web site.
In each day life, Arnhem-based Challenge MARCH pilot Koen van Zeeland is an govt in laying fibreglass within the Utrecht space. He was identified with a spinal wire damage in 2013. Koen is a tough employee and his cellphone is all the time ringing. But he likes to make time to have a drink together with his buddies within the pub. Apart from the pub, you may additionally discover him on the moors, the place he likes to stroll his canine Turbo. Koen can be tremendous sporty. Apart from understanding 3 times per week, Koen can be an avid bicycle owner with the objective of biking up the mountains in Austria on his handbike. Supply: Challenge MARCH web site.
Koen van Zeeland is the first check consumer of the exoskeleton and has management over the actions he makes. Challenge MARCH subsequently calls him the ‘pilot’ of the exoskeleton. Because the twenty-seventh and maybe most vital staff member, Koen is valued extremely inside Challenge MARCH VIII. Supply: Challenge MARCH web site.
Challenge MARCH is iterative enterprise.
Most of its office drama comes from the urgency to ship at the very least one vital enchancment on the prevailing prototype. This yr’s obsessions is weight; a lighter exoskeleton would require much less energy from each pilot and motors. Self-balancing would turn into simpler to grasp.
So as to not weaken the body of the exoskeleton, there was lots of enthusiasm to experiment with carbon fibre, which is each a lightweight and powerful materials. One thing, nonetheless, obtained in the best way: the staff struggled to discover a pilot.
My job is ensuring that ultimately we don’t have 600 separate components, however one exoskeleton.
“Having a check pilot is essential if we’re to achieve our objectives,” Wendel says. “Our present exoskeleton is constructed to suit the actual physique form of the particular person controlling it. The design is just not but adjustable to a distinct physique form. So it’s essential to get the pilot concerned as shortly as potential.”
Not having a pilot was hectic for your entire staff.
Their dream of making a self-balancing exoskeleton was in peril. Wendel needed to step up: “As chief engineer you need to make powerful selections. Carbon fibre is robust, however not versatile and troublesome to machine. That’s the reason we switched to aluminium, as a result of it’s simpler to switch even after it’s completed.”
“It was an enormous disappointment,” Wendel says. “A few of us had already completed trainings for carbon manufacturing. Carbon components had been already ordered. The staff felt let down. We had spent a a lot time on one thing that was now inconceivable – due to the delays brought on by having no pilot.”
“I learnt that bringing unhealthy information is a part of the chief engineer’s job. The following step is to take a look at convert the engineers’ enthusiasm for carbon fibre into new options and to redeploy their private qualities.”
Wendel says the job additionally taught him to contemplate 100 issues on the identical time. And to make sacrifices. Challenge MARCH entails lengthy workdays and possibly not seeing your folks and roommates as a lot as you desire to.
As a naturally curious particular person, Wendel came upon that curiosity have to be complemented by grit to make it in robotics. You usually must go deeper and examine in additional element to make a superb resolution. “It’s exhausting work. Nonetheless, that can be what makes the job a lot enjoyable. You’re employed in such a extremely motivated staff.”
That can be what makes the job a lot enjoyable.
The carbon story ended nicely, although.
When the staff did discovered a pilot, hard-working Koen van Zeeland, the selection for aluminium as a base materials paid off. By way of a technique of weight evaluation, components can now be optimised for an ever lighter exoskeleton.
The Challenge MARCH staff continues to develop by way of setbacks and has doubled-down on their efforts to create the world’s first self-balancing exoskeleton. In the event that they succeed, it will likely be an enormous success for this distinctive approach of working a enterprise.
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Rens van Poppel
